By _one_ man sin entered into the world, and
death _by sin_; and _so_ death _passed_ (literally, passed _through,
pierced_ man;" the seeds of death entered him for himself and all
his posterity). When he dies, therefore, be he never so moral and
upright, his death is judicial, his taking off is the execution of a
criminal.

He is to be raised from the dead as to his body (in the meantime,
his soul is "dragged" downward to the prison of the underworld,
where in conscious suffering he awaits the second resurrection and
the judgment hour), he will be raised, judged, found guilty and cast
forth into the lake of fire (which is the second death), from whence
there will be no resurrection of the body (the body will perish in
the fire--for an immortal body belongs only to the sons of God--the
participants in the First Resurrection); then, as a disembodied
spirit--a ghost--he will go forth with an inward, deathless worm,
and an inward, quenchless fire, to be like "a wandering star unto
whom is reserved the blackness of darkness forever," an exile from
God, outside the orbit of divine grace, love and life--a hopeless,
an eternally hopeless--human derelict, upon the measureless sea of
night and space.

That is the Bible picture of the natural man.

Is that the picture the natural man paints of himself?

I trow not!

Man looks upon himself as a son of God by nature, having in himself
all the elements of divinity, and all the forces necessary to shape
his life aright. He is proud of himself, and talks of the dignity of
human nature. He describes himself in panegyric, magnifies his
virtue and minimizes his vice.

He flatters himself in his own eyes.

The two concepts--that of the Bible and that of the natural man--are
as far apart from each other as the heavens are from the earth.

To man, the Bible concept is false, belittling, wholly disastrous
and degrading, the death knell to any possible inspiration for human
effort and attainment. It is a concept against which he revolts with
all the nature in him, and hates with an exceeding great hatred.

In the very nature of the case, then, the Bible concept of man is
not due to man; it is not such a concept that he _would_ write if he
_could_.

The picture which the Bible paints of sin is not such a picture as
the natural man has ever painted.

The Bible declares that sin is something more than fever or disease
or weakness, it is high treason against Jehovah, it is a blow at